Answers for August 2005

D E Fones

of Phoenix, Arizona, US of A. Sorry not much repartee this month – too much work and too many dwarfs.

Question 1

Towards the end of the movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” Snow White kisses six of the dwarfs goodbye. Which dwarf misses out?

Dr Bob Falls Into His Own Trap Again

This question was among 17 difficult questions asked by Neva Chonin of the San Francisco Chronicle on July 10. I did not know the answer, but I was certain that someone would enlighten me, probably in spades, so I cheerfully ran it in the quiz. But no researched answers came in, and I had to go and hire the flaming DVD. I spent 8 hours studying the film, mostly the ending, and this was REALLY difficult. First Bashful and Grumpy get greeted by name and kissed – i.e. the shy one and the misogynist, these being the least kissable dwarfs thus showing Snow White to have achieved something. Then 3 dwarfs come up together and get kissed, but Snow White does not name them, before Dopey is named and kissed. Now, of these 3 dwarfs, the nearest one to the viewer is clearly Happy, who has a red and brown coat, and is the only dwarf to have bushy eyebrows. The furthest one is clearly Doc, the only one with spectacles, and he is facing us. This leaves either SNEEZY or SLEEPY as the lucky middle dwarf; the other one remains unkissed. I checked this scene frame by frame 20 or 30 times, and checked out the entire film for clues 3 times. Sneezy has a light grey coat and Sleepy’s is dark grey – and the kissed dwarf has a grey coat of a middle hue. Sneezy and Sleepy have different beards and hats, but the kissed dwarf has taken his hat off and you don’t see the beard. Both dwarfs are in the melee surrounding Snow White before the kissing, but they arrive at essentially the same place in the melee before the scene cuts away. The kissed dwarf shows none of the stereotypical character gestures of either Sneezy or Sleepy. What happened is that the animators grouped the 3 dwarfs together to be able to cut to the ending quickly – the film was running too long, no full-length cartoon had ever been made before and there was a suspicion that people just would not be able to watch 70 minutes of bright cartoon colours. So, these two dwarfs were deliberately confused by Disney Studios in this scene, in order to prevent identification of the unkissed dwarf. Ye gods, this was difficult. I wish I had never asked it.

Easier Answers

All of them as Snow White was in a vile mood as the prince turned out to be a transvestite. [No – that was the Archbishop]

Bashful. He was hiding behind a tree or something.

Buggered if I know. [That was only in the R rated version]

Danny DeVito? Happy missed out, but Dopey got double dipped. Hmmm, maybe she had a lip disorder and Happy wanted to avoid it (“don’t worry, be Happy”) and Dopey was too stupid to know.

Depends on how you defined “missed out”. My sources says she kissed them all, including Grumpy several times. May be thats why he became Grumpy – all that foreplay (dwarves, like most men, don’t seem to believe in this), then he “missed out” …

Doc

Dopey

George Bush

Gropy

Grumpy

Grumpy, proving that when a beautiful lass is passing out smooches, it’s best not to be off sulking.

Grumpy. But which came first – he’s grumpy because he was missed out, or was he missed out because he was grumpy?

Happy

Happy – scene was going on too long.

Herpes, the blistered one.

Humpy

In the first release of the movie it was ‘Pimp’, he ‘doesn’t do’ kissing.

John Howard, get’s his own back though.

Kikuchiyo

Lesbie. Snow White was homophobic (lesbophobic?) and poor Lesbie was always left out of these group activities.

Sleepy–he’d already dozed off.

Sneezy

Sneezy – She didn’t want to catch whatever he was suffering from.

Sneezy, because greedy Dopey pushes in front of him at the back of the queue to get a second kiss. (I used to do that at nursery school to get a second spoonful of cod-liver oil, but that’s another story.)

Sneezy, because his snot grossed her out

Sneezy. There ain’t no way Ms. White wanted dwarf mucus all over her during the big finale.

The gay one. There’s no point in kissing a gay dwarf.

The one with the cold sore.

Wanky. She couldn’t get near him without slipping.

Well sleepy didn’t get kissed in one scene. But that was by the Prince not Snow White. Real kinky movie. Now if he went around kissing dwarves!! Woo Hoo. Oh wrong scene?

Whiffy. The very short bald one they all use as an under-arm roll-on.

Question 2

What famous historical character said “It might have been a little higher” (in a disappointed tone of voice)?

Answer

Charles I, concerning the height of the chopping block

Other Answers

Admiral Nelson when he was measured for his first admiral’s hat – and went off and got one with a bigger feather.

Adolf Hitler

Bel Marduk, the builder of the Tower of Babel.

Charles I – just before his execution

Charles the First, so amused was he at his nonchalance, he laughed his head off. No doubt you will get a zillion similar stupid comments.

Empress Josephine.

Hitler

I have no idea but at a guess could it have been Jack the Ripper when he was contemplating his body count.

King Charles 1 at his execution. He also worried about his hair apparently.

King Charles I in 1648 immediately before his execution (beheading). He was hoping the axeman would lift higher than he had (arms already fully extended) so that there would be no pain. Not to worry, one slice and his head came off; the executioner must have had huge muscles.

King Charles I on the occasion of his beheading. Disappointed? I’d be pretty pissed off too.

King Charles I wanted a last look at his house

King Charles the 1st, complaining about the block on which his royal noggin was about to be separated from his royal body.

King Henry VIII

Lord Nelson

Lorena Bobbit’s husband?

Monsieur Eiffel

Napolean Boneapart

Napoleon Bonepart

Nebuchadnezzar

No idea, but he had just been shot in the head.

Old king whatsis name the headless. Talking about the block they were about to chop him on. Charles the 1st wasn’t it?

There must be HUNDREDS of smutty one-liners right here just WAITING to leap off the keyboards of the sender-innerers, Dr Bob. Actually, it was Charles I of England, referring to the block on which he was beheaded. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/charlesI.htm

Toulouse Lautrec (with reference to the customized bar stool he’d just been presented with at the Folies Bergere)

Verne J Troyer. A little hypocritical I you ask me. he he – a ‘little’

Wasn’t it more like “It might have been a little -” ?

Jim Morrison

Question 3

Complete this saying, “All good things must come to an end, except …..”

Answer

“…except the sausage, which has two” (Norwegian proverb)

Other Answers

“All good things must come to an end, except economic growth based on tax cuts, overspending and massive borrowing from China!”

. . . this quote which says all good things must come to an end, except this quote which says that . . .

.. it’s a goodies quote, isn’t it. Ha ha! I’ll have it by September…

… a mobius strip.

… good things that don’t come to an end.

… take my last hunk of Haighs chocolate and I will make you replace it at gunpoint”.

…death and taxes.” No wait, those were certainties. ..than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Ack, no. ..or give me death!” Gah! ..death and taxes.” Okokok…yeah, final answer!

…if you start again straight away.”

…in Hollywood, where pretty much anything that finds an audience the first time becomes ripe for a follow-up.

…this sentence, which begins…

a packet of Tim Tams that never runs out.

bad things

chocolate

Death (and taxes)

Death and taxes.

Death and taxes. Just ask Howard and Costello; one appears immortal, the other immoral.

Death and taxes. I think. I know it usually gets quoted as “only two sure things” but I think that’s wrong.

Probably something boring about god or something but I prefer “on television. They have reruns”.

Sex, drugs and rock-and-roll?

Ten second Search Engine answers included God, God’s love, heaven, Lord of the Rings movies, oranges, Aerosmith, Police Academy movies, Family Guy and others. My favourite is “…all good things must come to an end (except the size of both women’s breasts which seem to get bigger by one cup size every 5 years)…” Now there’s a happy ending.

the breakfast bell, the lunch bell, the dinner bell

The Human Spirit

the movie version of Return of the King, which has hundreds. Hundreds, I say!

the ones you have to pay for.

the ring.

Time

um, being alive until you die.

Teleologically, a doughnut?

Question 4

Which celebrity’s favourite book is “If you take a mouse to the movies”?

Answer

President George W. Bush’s cat, India. http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/india/ You get half a point for “President George W. Bush”. Well, a quarter of a point …. anyone who thinks India is a cat … “I’m busy with Iraq this morning, can you take India out”

Humanoid Answers

?….you gotta be kidding. Not GW, he likes the Hungry Caterpillar.

According to the White House web page, it’s the favourite book of the George Bush’s cat, whose name is India. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/india/). This marks the first time a U.S. presidential pet has been more literate than their owner since they returned William McKinley’s blue and gold Mexican parrot to the wild (the bird was rather fond of Proust).

Anna Pacquin.

Bert Newton

Bill Gates, who always takes a laptop with a mouse into movie theaters.

It wasn’t Posh Spice, because she’s “never read a book in her life”. What a role model.

Jason (Greenspan) Alexander is getting royalties on the audio version. That would make me like it a bit better. I can’t get over the continuity error in Mouse Cookie where in the first time through it goes cookie to milk and near the end it goes milk to cookie. Horrible ending.

Jason Alexander

Jason Alexander? Well he read it on a cassette so I suppose he makes money from it.

Question 5

Do more baggage carousels at airports go around clockwise than anticlockwise?

I am indebted to John Bourke for this Correct Answer:

They remain essentially stationary, even when the belt moves.

Other Answers

But come to think of it if you sat on the belt, the rest of the world would appear to go around.

Consider if you stood on the belt of the luggage carousel and walked against the motion such that the surrounding building seemed stationary. At what point does this exercise become a total waste of time?

As many baggage carousels go around more clockwise than anticlockwise as microwave plates which go around more clockwise than anticlockwise.

Baggage carousels are constructed to go anticlockwise. However, since most people tend to gather in a line formed in the direction the carousel moves, airport design occasionally calls for modifying them to run clockwise.

Baggage carousels detect on which side of the place the baggage comes onto them the most people are standing, then turn the other way, so that all those people have to move, or watch their baggage go all the way around until it reaches them, while they stand there looking stupid.

Baggage carousels in the northern hemisphere go clockwise, those in the southern hemisphere go counter-clockwise (as we say in the north instead of anti-clockwise)so since there is more land mass and more airports in the northern hemisphere, more baggage carousels at airports go around clockwise.

Because the Earth rotates, a baggage carousel that flows along the earth’s surface feels a “Coriolis” acceleration perpendicular to its velocity. In the Northern Hemisphere, Coriolis acceleration makes low pressure baggage systems spin counterclockwise; however, in the Southern Hemisphere, they spin clockwise because the direction of the Coriolis acceleration is reversed.

clock wise

clockwise

Clockwise

Clockwise. There are more airports in the Northern Hemisphere, and everyone knows airport baggage carousels, just like toilet water, run one way north of the equator and another south of it. q.e.d.

Contrary to some cult like beliefs, baggage carousels are stationary. Their belts travel in a circular motion but the carousels seem rooted to the spot.

For those with nothing better to do with their life, Per http://www.dullmen.com/airport.htm Tabulation: 362 airports have reported in . . . 45.2% are counterclockwise, 28.8% clockwise, 7.5% both ways, 3% other, 15.5% have no carousels

I don’t care which way it circles about, I just want the one with MY bags on it – they were diverted, but I am not amused.

In my (not so great) experience, anticlockwise.

In the northern hemisphere they go the other way, so clockwise.

It depends if you’re standing on the floor or on the roof.

It depends on which hemisphere you’re in.

It depends upon the airport, and the architecture thereof.

Many Carousels go in both directions

More go anticlockwise of course. Everyone will know this.

More go counter-clockwise unless you are looking at them from below the plane of their motion.

Most carousels can go either way. Typically they change direction every 12 hours to even out wear on the rollers, bearings and other moving parts. This also enables jammed fingers or lost toes or money to be retrieved. Exception: in a Communist country, carousels always go to the left.

Most don’t go around at all when I’M near them (grumble, grumble).

No

No – 43.7 per cent of carousels turn anti-clockwise, 29.7 per cent clockwise, 7.5 per cent both ways, 2.4 per cent other, and 16.7 per cent of airports have no carousels

No.

No.

No. Anti-clockwise is predominant.

Okay – South clockwise and North anti clockwise or is that the other way around. The same way when toilets are flushed from north to south depending on the hemisphere.

Since it always takes 1/2 an hour to get them going in the first place, who cares!

They all go in such a way that when they start up you find yourself at the wrong end if you are in a hurry. This is corollary of Murphy’s Law.

They go in the direction they want to. It was a freak engineering mis-hap that ALL airport carousels were programmed to ‘play’ with the tired waiting travelers. Sometimes they go clockwise, sometimes not. Then there’s that button you press when your luggage eventually gets to you (they labelled it ’emergency stop’ for some reason). Why don’t more people use that??? saves you having to run after luggage or having to jump on the conveyer.

Question 6

What is the topic of the book from which this useful conversion table is taken?

Answer, Albeit Obscure

“The man who lost himself” – A Biography of the Tichborne Claimant.

Other Answers

“Long Distance Relationships: How To Tell If They Are Worth It” Either that, or shotputting.

“still using imperial? get with the program!” issued to those in those countries who need to convert their 10 ounces of apples to 280g of apples.

“The American’s Guide to the Rest of the World”

“The Measure of All Things: the seven year odyssey and hidden error that transformed the world” by Ken Alder is about the quest to create the metric system.

“Physics” – Mr Ricciardone

3 x 6.25 is actually 18.75, so it must be “Get Rich Quick The Imperial Way”.

Her Majesty’s Tester of Racks and Other Implements of Torture – A Guide.

Judging the decathalon? Erm, they left out 8 stone = 1 cwt. Who is that slacker of a proofreader!? Set them to javelin catching as a corrective measure…

Losing weight through long distance running for women of average height.

Mathematics

Quantity Surveying for Dummies.

Queensland

Run and lose weight? For people of average height? Or race horses of average height at the shoulder?

Scottish Triathalon. The feet to meters is for short-stick kaber tossing. The stones to kg are for farmers carries. The miles to km are for the hernia limp ultramarathon to the hospital approved by their insurance. (Note to those outside the US: You may replace “hospital approved by their insurance” to “nearest hospital without a wait” in order to make the punchline funny in your social context.)

The Columbia Shuttle’s “Re-entry Procedures” Handbook (NASA, 2003). The updated version has a more up to date Prayer section, including Last Rites.

The Country Woman’s Association Cookbook. The distance was a little superflous but considering how god awful the food was maybe it was guessing the distance needed to run from the food…..especially in the offal section.

The Pedant’s Vade Mecum, by Philbert Q Finister III.

This comes from the weighty tome “Long Time Coming”. A book about a sleepy dwarf who never stayed awake long enough to ejaculate. It was used to measure the height of the other dwarves (all of them over 5 foot 6), their weight in kgs and pounds and the distance they had to walk to work.

Conversion charts are better to look at than pictures of naked ladies. [But Andrew, these tables are very useful for converting the sizes of naked ladies!]

Groucho Marx once said, “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”

Hey, look, i tried to be serious on ALL the questions!!

Hi Dr. Bob. More questions on US celebrities please (not!)

How come you know all the answers?

How cool is Christian Slater!? [Not cool enough, he is still at 98.6 degrees]

how did we go [Terrible, 0/6!!! Maybe (1/7)/6 from Q1. But this is about average 🙂 ]

I had my physics class all work together on this so that way we may become better as a class!

I wandered lonely as a cloud, yet still I had more friends than you.

It’s totally unfortunate that I was not able to get the Skeptics Convention this year. Just when it was on I had to go find a new contract, which took up not only all my time but also all my free disposable income. Did you miss me, Dr B?

No comment this time Dr. Bob other than I wonder why I do these quizzes.

Now I’m a procrastinator. Before I discovered this quiz I was only an amateur.

Send isn’t good enough, now we ‘dispatch’ our answers. But dispatch is what gets done to ‘the enemy’, and facts are the enemy of truth, so what I’m sending is completely true and hasn’t a single fact in it!

Sigur Ros is a cover band!!!!

These questions are hard, dammit!!!

Yeah, like, what does this quiz prove, exactly?

Yes, two sets of answers this month. I’m very very bored and very very procrastinating.